Danny Care – Harlequins and England

Rugby World sat down with the ‘Care Bare’ to chat about buying Liverpool FC, the clubs chances of making the play-offs and having a bit too much spare time on his hands.

RUGBY WORLD: Harlequins have found some form in the Premiership. Can you make the play-offs?

DANNY CARE: At the start of the season we were aiming for the top six to go one better than last year. Now the top four is wide open and we’re aiming for it. It’s nice to be playing the sort of rugby we want to play, throwing the ball around. The boys are enjoying it.

RW: It’s a young squad as well…

DC: Yeah, there’s a good bunch of young English lads so hopefully we can stick together for a long time.

RW: What about Adrian Jarvis’s move to Bristol next season?

DC: He’s taken a bit of stick in training for that but we wish him all the best, except when we play Bristol. Then I’ll send some big guys down his channel!

RW: So who are the jokers at Quins?

DC: Tommy Williams is an annoying sort of joker. If you’re bent down tying your shoelaces, he’ll push you over into a puddle. The main gag at the club is to change the numbers in people’s phones, like swapping your girlfriend’s number for Dean Richards’s so when you text your girlfriend it goes to him.

RW: That’s wicked. Any other gags?

DC: We have this thing called Knob of the Week. If you’ve been caught doing something stupid on camera, you get nominated and the team sit round to watch all the videos. The one with the loudest cheer wins. I’m lucky; in a year and a half I’ve not even been nominated. I keep my head down when the camera phones come out. My housemate Jordan Turner-Hall has got it a few times. He’s always up to stupid antics.

RW: So do you get any abuse?

DC: Any small Mexican or Italian person with brown hair – I get called him. If it’s a person with a big nose it’s Stretts [David Strettle]. It’s not a high level of banter.

Super-powers, Bugbears and Horses…

RW: Don’t you have a pretty decent pool record against Strettle?

DC: We used to live together and had a chalkboard of all the games we’d played. It got to the point where there wasn’t any room on my side to put all the wins in. He won a couple but we must have played 300 games – we had a lot of spare time.

RW: What super-power would you like?

DC: To fly. I’d fly to the Playboy mansion, then go on to Vegas and New York.

RW: Do you have any bugbears?

DC: When you open the door for someone and they don’t say thank you. It wouldn’t happen up north but everyone’s too busy in London.

RW: What’s the funniest thing you’ve heard on the pitch? Any sledging?

DC: Jordan dishes out a bit of banter. He likes to call people his ‘little bitch’ when he does a big tackle. He’s big and there’s nothing you can really come back with.

RW: What about the funniest thing you’ve seen on the pitch?

DC: In training last year, I was marking Stretts on the wing. There was a bit of banter and I said there was a horse on the pitch. He told me to shut up and stop being an idiot, and I said, “Honest to God, turn round.” Eventually he turned round and there was this massive horse at the back of the pitch, a park ranger or something. Play went on and we were just laughing about this horse.

RW: What would you like to achieve outside of rugby?

DC: To be very rich! I’d love to win the Lottery and buy a football club. Liverpool would be my first choice.